5A 110 CHAPTER 5A workload was calculated as the four week rolling average of the acute workload [9], [11], [12], [19], [28]. The ACWR was determined dividing the acute workload by the chronic workload (the coupled approach), indicating the relative size of acute workload compared to the chronic workload [9], [11], [12], [19], [28]. An ACWR below one represents an acute workload that is lower than the chronic workload. Conversely, an ACWR value above one represents an acute workload, which is higher than the chronic workload. The first four weeks of the study, the weeks in which runners were injured, as well as the four weeks after recovery from the injury were removed from the analysis of the ACWR and the chronic workload [12]. It is only after four weeks of normal workload that the chronic workload represents a non-biased value with respect to the injury occurrence [12]. Removing the weeks in which runners were injured created a separation between the load calculation window and the injury risk window [29], [30]. Subsequently the injury lag period was generalized to a risk window of a seven day period. Figure 1 shows a visualization of a runners’ ACWR for the 24 months, a sustained injury, and the corresponding recovery period to illustrate the influence of a very low chronic workload on the ACWR. Figure 1. Visualisation of a runners 24 months ACWR containing an injury and corresponding recovery period, with a biased ACWR due to a biased chronic workload ratio in the first four weeks of the log and four weeks after a recovery period. The normality of the distribution of the acute workload, the chronic workload, the ACWR and differences between the ACWR were tested. For all statistical analysis, we used IBM SPSS 2.4, unless indicated otherwise.
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